Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished ManuscriptReview Method: Peer ReviewedAbstract: One of the most highly touted developments in the systems response to rape is the wide-scale adoption of sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE) programs. SANE programs provide specialized medical care, psychological support, and forensic evidence collection in the wake of a sexual assault. Scholars, nursing professionals, and government agencies almost universally describe SANE programs as making significant positive contributions in the investigation and prosecution of sex crimes cases.

While there is compelling evidence that SANE programs have improved outcomes for victims in many communities, the investment of time and resources obscures the potentially troubling issues SANE programs pose for victim advocates concerned about the state response to rape. Local and state prodding to develop SANE programs in local communities fails to anticipate or remedy pre-existing problems with the medical and legal responses to rape, does not anticipate the ways that medical evidence can be used to discourage investigation and prosecution, and presents conflicts over whether medical and criminal justice institutions should define the scope of post-rape care for victims of sexual assault.

Rape care advocates in Michigan have developed a novel and compelling way to re-shape institutional responses to rape by asserting control over SANE programs. Local rape crisis centers have “taken rape away” from the state by setting up community-based sexual assault nurse examiner programs (CB SANEs), which offer forensic medical services to rape victims in locations other than hospitals. These CB SANEs usually include medical and legal partners as participants, but rape care advocates retain control over the practices and protocols of post-rape care. Advocates cite a variety of reasons for pursuing these programs, especially abusive practices by medical and legal personnel, the failure of voluntary protocols to adequately standardize the behavior of first responders, and the desire to place respect for victim needs—rather than either a medical protocol or evidence collection—at the heart of post-rape care.

Despite some limitations in the move to distance post-rape medical care from the state, CB SANEs do provide a way to re-configure institutional responses to rape by legitimizing the role of rape crisis centers in local communities, broadening the base of local allies concerned with medical care for victims, and providing increased oversight of criminal justice practices in rape cases. Such responses contest the “ownership” of post-rape care by either forensic professionals or criminal justice actors, and offer competing models of SANE programs that carry out the health and legal aspects of such programs without permitting either one to eclipse a victim-centered notion of care.

Publication Type: PosterAbstract: Societal acceptance of rape myths hinders rape survivors ability to correctly identify their assault as rape. Content analysis of rape survivors narratives revealed four categories for why survivors did not consider their assault to be rape, and how they later came to define the event as rape.

Publication Type: Individual PaperReview Method: Peer ReviewedAbstract: Rape myths and the acceptance of them is pervasive in the United States. This paper examined which factors influence the acceptance of rape myths using two separate methodologies.

First, a secondary data analysis was conducted of 389 respondents from one northeastern university in the United States. The study, Rape Prevention Through Bystander Education at a Northeastern State University, was conducted by V. Banyard. E. Plante, & M. Moynihan from 2002-2004. The findings showed that males and athletes have higher rape myth acceptance than other demographics.

Next, a survey was conducted of 592 respondents from universities across the United States. Respondents reported demographic information such as gender, race, year in school, athletic team membership, member or fraternity or sorority, etc. These demographics were analyzed in order to determine what factors had the highest acceptance of rape myths. The findings showed that males, members of fraternities, and athletes have higher rape myth acceptance than other demographics. Also, students in their junior year had higher rape myth acceptance than any other year.

The data from both methodologies conclude that there are specific demographics that have higher acceptance of rape myths than other demographic populations.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished ManuscriptReview Method: Peer ReviewedAbstract: Rape and sexual assault are crimes that are studied in many academic disciplines utilizing differing research methods, both qualitative and quantitative. The majority of research conducted on the perpetrators of rape/sexual assault have utilized convicted and incarcerated populations. The knowledge obtained from such methodologies only represents the small portion of perpetrators that have fully gone through the justice system and been convicted, skewing not only the cultural conception of the embodiment of a rapist, but academic understandings as well. By examining anonymous online narratives obtained through a highly popular social media and networking site (Reddit.com) a more honest portrayal of the spectrum of rape/sexual assaults can be obtained. The online disinhibition effect prompts people to be less guarded and inhibited on the internet due to their anonymity (Suler 2004). The analysis of such accounts provides a more nuanced portrayal of rape/sexual assault than the stereotype of violent stranger rape perpetuated by the media.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished ManuscriptAbstract: This study expands our understanding of rape victimization as a process whose outcome is the end result of the interplay among a number of factors, including offender and victim characteristics, and external situational, temporal and location factors.
Using previously unused narrative portions and coded entries from 75 completed and attempted rape incident reports from the 2000-2001 National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) the study examines how the interplay across key variables, including crime circumstances, victim-offender relationship and any victim self defense, contributed to the outcome of the crime and to possible victim injury. The NCVS is an ongoing survey conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics to provide information on the frequency, characteristics and consequences of crimes both reported and not reported to police. The narratives, previously unused in the analysis of survey data, add contextual information about the rape incidents not available elsewhere in the interview.

Using the narratives, offender actions were categorized into 5 scenarios according to how the incident began. Victim responses to the attack and their ability to defend against the rape varied by scenario. The narratives demonstrate that rapes are complex interplays of victims, offenders and circumstances. Because of a lack of contextual information about crime incidents and circumstances, previous research has provided only limited and sometimes flawed explorations of the relationships between incident circumstances and incident outcomes. The complexities surrounding rape victimization make it difficult, and even dangerous to develop simplistic counsel for victims to extract themselves from such victimization.